Fans saw Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) cry her eyes out at the end of season 5, after losing the man she thought she'd spend the rest of her life with, Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder). When the new season premieres this fall, however, Elena's life will appear to be back in order.

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"One of the big questions you'll be asking when we get back is how did she pick up the pieces?" executive producer Julie Plec told TVGuide.com in a new interview. "Or did she pick up the pieces at all? When we come back, several months have passed and Elena has returned to her life at school and seems to be doing well, but the mystery is really how well is she doing? And she's got some odd and awkward coping mechanisms that inform a lot about where she is and how she's handling this particular grief."

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Plec teased that Elena's methods of moving on will be "interesting to watch" and "not necessarily healthy." Elena, she said, will also lean on Damon's brother Stefan (Paul Wesley), who is also finding ways to get over his devastating loss.

"They connect over the fact that sometimes it takes extreme choices to move past something that has hurt you so deeply," she said of the two. "So we will see their friendship able to be strong and healthy in spite of the way each of them individually are dealing with their loss."

The sixth season of The Vampire Diaries premieres on Oct. 2 at 8/7c on The CW.

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